Sloppy management a cause of freight fraud

Press, 15 July 1985, Page 35

Sloppy management a cause of freight fraud

PA Wellington Sloppy management is the main cause of frauds involving freight, according to a marine insurance assessor, Mr David McKellar. While major cargo crime was not a problem in New Zealand, there was a lot of minor crime in this area, he said in a paper delivered to an Insurance Council seminar.

“It is extremely difficult and costly to tie this minor crime to an over-all major crime ring,” he said. Many such crimes involved stealing small quantities of a wide variety of goods, which made them more difficult to detect. "Most thefts of goods in transit or from warehouses can be traced to sloppy management,” Mr McKellar said. Transport operators who use weak container seals or left vehicles containing high-value goods in the same places all the time were inviting theft. Poor documentary records also helped thieves, he said.

“If management has not set down strict systems for the use of receipts and constant checking of them, all sorts of ways can be found to overcome the system and uplift goods illegally,” he said.